One Small Step for Superman
Story In the mountains outside of Metropolis, a boy is playing fetch with his dog Moosie. When suddenly, a bear comes near them, and the stick that the boy throws for his dog to fetch hits the bear. Immediately he tells his dog to make a run for it, they both take off in a direction away from the bear, the grizzly bear takes off after them. The boy trips and falls down. The dog stops and barks at him, and then the boy gets back up and keeps running, and he tells Moosie they're almost to the highway. But as he is running away he runs right off a hill and rolls down. Behind him, he can hear the bear as it growls and the dog is barking. He is too scared to open his eyes and look up the hill, afraid of the horror that's behind him. Meanwhile, high above the forest, the Wonder Twins are on their daily patrol, Jayna, in the form of an eagle is flying and carrying Gleek, who is carrying a bucket that Zan is in, in his water form. The team are about to take a lunch break, and Jayna tells her brother she could really go for some fried chicken. Just then, they spot the young boy that was chased by the bear below them, and they fly down and decide to take lunch later, so that they can help him. Jayna thinks he must have fallen and hit his head. Later, at the Metropolis Medical Center, the Wonder Twins are visiting the boy, who is named Grant in the hospital. The Doctor asks Grant how he's feeling, and he says fine. He then asks where Moosie is. His dad then looks away from him in sadness, and tells him that he ran away. But by his expression it was obvious what had happened. The dog was killed by the bear. But the doctor quickly cuts in and tells him aside from a few scratches he's in perfect health. He jumps out of bed, but he then realizes he can't walk. his mother runs over to balance him. His dad asks the doctor what's wrong. The Doctor said he doesn't understand, because the X-rays showed no damage. Later, in the Bat-Cave, Grant is in a wheelchair, and the Wonder Twins and Gleek are present and Batman is using the Batcomputer to scan Grant's body to see if anything is wrong. Grant's convinced he'll never walk again. The Batcomputer then states that there's no sign of physical damage. Batman tells the boy that the Batcomputer doesn't lie. He then tells them to "tell that to my legs!" They try to encourage him not to give up, but it's no use. The damage is psychological. The trauma of losing his pet caused him to lose his ability to walk, indicating that it's all in his head. Grant grabs the wheels and rolls off, but he goes down a ramp at high speed, Gleek jumps down and grabs the back of the wheelchair with his elongated tail but is unable to stop the chair from rolling down the ramp. Batman pulls a gadget out of his utility belt and throws it, which causes a glue to burst out over the surface, stopping the wheelchair and saving Grant's life. Gleek faints from the overwhelming shock of it the incident. The boy is not very thankful even though he just saved his life. Batman tells the boy that he has a friend that can help him. Not long later, Batman, the Twins, Gleek and Grant are right outside the Hall of Justice, Superman uses his X-Ray vision to see if there's anything wrong with his legs, he tells him he can't find anything wrong with his legs either. But he tells him he can find a way to cheer him up. The boy angrily says "Oh yeah?! Like what!?" Superman tells him he's going to give him a tour of Metropolis at five thousand feet. He lifts the boy out of his wheelchair and takes off toward the sky. He asks him if he likes the view, and the boy responds in a somewhat depressed sounding voice: "I guess so." Just then, Superman's JLA Communicator beeps, and he answers it, and Zan tells Superman that the Hall of Justice is under attack. The two of them fly back to the Justice League's headquarters, where a giant robot is attacking. The creature fires Energy blasts from it's hand, just barely missing the Wonder Twins and Gleek. Using their Exxorian powers, Jayna changes into a Giraffe and Zan transforms into an ice wrench. Gleek jumps up on Jayna's long giraffe neck, and then she bends down and Gleek grabs the ice wrench. Gleek starts using the wrench to take the monster apart, by loosening the bolts, but he and Zan are shoved aside by the robot. The beast then charges Jayna, and uses his Optic energy blasts to shoot her, but he just barely misses. Superman and the boy arrives, and he sets the child down on the stairs, and goes to attack the robot. The robot fires a bunch of energy blasts at Superman but misses each time. Then Superman tangles the robot's arms. Then the robot shoots what appears to be Green Kryptonite from his mouth. Superman then falls to the ground. The boy tells Superman to get up. Superman tells him he has to get rid of the Kryptonite. But his legs wouldn't respond. He tells Superman he can't. The robot continues approaching. Superman tells Grant that he can do it. Grant manages to force himself to his feet and walk over toward the Kryptonite and toss it down a drain in the street. Superman gets back up, flies into the robot's feet and causes it to trip and crash into the ground into pieces. Later, Grant's parents arrive at the Hall of Justice. Superman thanks Grant, who is now walking again, for saving his life. Grant tells the Super Friends that they were right all along, and that the problem wasn't in his legs, it was in his mind. He said that he guessed that if he couldn't walk with Moosie anymore, he just wouldn't walk at all. Batman tells him that he now knows just how powerful his decisions are. He leaves with his parents, and just then, Superman then tells the the other Super Friends that it's amazing just how powerful the mind is, and then he tells them how the rock he used was actually Fake Kryptonite. Continuity *The Metropolis Medical Center was previously seen in the episode A Pint of Life. Continuity in other media Episode Title *The episode title references Neil Armstrong's famous quote "One Small Step for Man..." *The "Super" is added to refer to Superman, and his "step" refers to the lengths he goes to to get Grant walking again. *This episode shouldn't be confused with the similarly titled episode One Small Step for Mars. Notes *This episode is one of the few episodes with Batman in which Robin isn't present. *Superman's robot is similar to the DC Comics supervillain Metallo, who is a cyborg that is powered by Green Kryptonite. References Category:Episodes Category:Shorts Category:1983 Releases